With the ghosts of Emily Dickinson, Arthur Rimbaud, Sappho, and Walt Whitman leadingthe way, How to Kill Poetry showcases a highly selective overview of Western civilization poetic development from its oral traditions to the silence of pixels. The narrative then jumps 200 years into the future where the unfortunate consequences of global warming create a dramatic backdrop against which poetry--if it is to have any redeeming value--must survive.